Do you buy your games used whenever you can?

Curious what the GB does. I never buy used. I have worked and still do somewhat work in the game development industry, so I want to keep all the money flowing to developers and not to re-resalers.

I've got friends who will pay an extra $5 for a new copy just so Gamestop and such aren't making a second round of pure profit from a game.

So how do you guys buy games? Obviously, excluding brand new titles that are only new, but lets say you're going buy something that came out last year, do you go for the new copy for $40 or the used copy for $35?

re: Do you buy your games used whenever you can?(Posted by Broketec on 12/28/12 at 9:40 am to Broketec)

I got curious after having a discussion a few weeks back with a coworker about used games and Gamestop's profiteering off of a developer's hard work.

Gears of War for example, sold 6 million copies brand new. The game retailed for $60. The likely breakdown in the sales were $10 to retailers, $25 to publisher (Microsoft) and $25 to Epic. So Epic banked $150 million off of the game. If gamestop sold 3 million of those copies, they made $30 million in sales. Lets say that 1/3 (For easy math's sake) of the games get traded in, and resold at $55 used, gamestop makes another $110,000,000 from resales of used games and have now actually made more money from the game than the actual developers.

The reality of it is that more than 1/3 of those 6 million copies was likely trade in and resold.

Anyway, thats my outlook on used games and was curious who bought what and why.

re: Do you buy your games used whenever you can?(Posted by stout on 12/28/12 at 9:51 am to Broketec)

I see that you are saying but you are also leaving out the side business of a game like Gears. They make tons of money off of merchandising and other stuff. Avatars, toys, strategy guides, etc. Let's not forget DLC.

I have no doubt GS makes a killing on used games but I doubt they make more than the developer on a game as big as Gears. Maybe some of the smaller games...maybe.

re: Do you buy your games used whenever you can?(Posted by stout on 12/28/12 at 10:01 am to Broke)

Or they could go all digital and self publish. No Publisher taking half your money. No store mark up and no product to trade in. Plus, you can sell your product cheaper and still make more money. Win-win for everyone.

Minecraft is a great example of this. All digital on PC and Xbox and all self published. Super Meat Boy the same way though they did let other places Like Steam sell license for their game.